I noticed that too. Maybe Charles didn't like Royal? How many ascents has the route had since?

84 was a big year. They finished The Real Nose. Has it had many [any?] subsequent ascents? How hard is it anyway? Slater and Barbella climbed the Ranch. And didn't Bermuda Dunes go up that year, too?

I remember that article from Mountain Mag - it was very inspiring for me. I remembered how he climbed into the chimney, then fixed the rope through the little hole and then jugged up the outside. Cool to read about Fish and Gramicci. And how about that solo belaying with the sticht plate and jumar? Sheesh.

He writes of using opposing hooks? I wonder - did he not think of using prusiks on his lead rope to hold the hooks in place under tension?

Obviously he was psyched:

"For the past 9 months, every time I ran, every time I worked out, every time I went climbing, it was for this route."

Man, that's a nasty approach. Talk about motivated! loved this bit:

"As the wall steepens the continuous A4 pitches change character from copperheading to nailing expanding flakes. Copperheads one can deal with semi-scientifically but nailing expando is bloody black magic. Scary too. Good pins become bad and bad pins drop out..."

Hear hear! What a fabulous story of determination to finish that wall! I wonder if he got any water during the thunderstorm. You-all really ought to read this story, as it is an overlooked Yosemite classic!

This is probably redundant, but I just posted a note about the Modern Marvel TV show that features Charles (Cole) and Stealth tonight (History Channel, 8pm, "Sticky Stuff.) When I saw the post on Queen of Spades, I thought you'd be interested in what Charles is up to lately.

That route looks really fun! How many ascents? Half Dome looks like the hangout, not all beat out and fixed. Not about this route but, how is bushido gully these days? Last time I saw it looked gripping.

Lets have a techno party at base this year. Laser light show, sick beats, half naked chicks danceing around... we may need the mules to carry them in. Can we still rent those bastards? Anyone got the hook up at the stables?

John that is cool. Don't have any guide books, nice to be able to see the topo and read the story.

When I first met Charles in the spring of 1985, he told me about the Queen of Spades adventure which was still very fresh in his mind. It included several guffaws about using the lesser known partner's names for the listed routes and how he'd duped many people who didn't know their history. His dramatic re-telling of the rainstorm torrent that nearly drowned him was totally wild.

Mules - now there's an idea! Are you retired now Jake, or coming back sometime? Didn't you take a nasty alpine fall or something? How are you these days? Coming round this spring? And when are you soloing Native Son? {snicker} Should be a cakewalk for you these days.

Just got surgery on my ankle. Trying to get healed enough to do a few walls. Funny you mention the solo, saw that el cap route thread and was thinking, "damn I still have to solo to even count a route!". Wait till you see what I have in the works for a wall costume...

I did the second ascent of The Queen of Spades with Sean Plunkett in 1994, almost exactly 10 years after the first ascent. It is a really good route...... very sustained and nearly every crack is expanding! I heard that a Russian team also did it. I don't know of any other ascents.

Sean went to the thrift store just before the climb. He had several killer shirts on the climb. He would wear them in layers... every few hours during the day he would take off a layer exposing a whole new big wall fashion statement !!

I think that hat is the one he lost near the top of the route... wind took it away..... he was bummed.

We were on the climb for the fourth of July... that night Sean pulled a huge American flag out of his haul. There was just enough breeze that it flew beautifully off the edge of his portaledge.

Yes Pete, we did the "tunnel" with the rope out the hole trick. It is the only way to cross 60 feet of blank rock. It is the weirdest maneuver I have ever done on a climb!! It baffles me how Cole managed to figure it out on the first ascent.

Charles really relished that feature of the route. That tunnel, the opposing hooks move and the torrential downpour at the summit overlaps are what stand out in my memory. Almost every pitch was old school A4! Very cool second ascent for you and the Wide Eyed Boy, as I liked to call Sean. Whenever we were hanging out telling tall tales about hairy aid climbing his eyes would just about leap out when things got interesting. I bet he was especially dilated when he snapped off the tip of the Space Flake on Zenith while soloing the beast.

The second to last photo is looking down on "The Pier" at the top of topo pitch 2, which is actually the top of pitch 3. There is a whole pitch missing from the topo. Pitch 2 is actually a long steep wide crack, mixed free and aid.

The "tunnel" can be seen in that photo. Just to the right of the climber standing on the ledge there is a spot where the crack behind the slab gapes open a bit. That is where you squeeze in. From there you chimney 60 feet straight up into the darkness, guided only by a spot of light that comes in through a hole in the slab. The hole is about 4" in diameter. Luckily, it is directly above The Pier so that when you feed your haul line out through the hole the end makes its way back to the belay. After chimneying back down to the ledge, it is then possible to jug up the haul line to the hole. From there a shallow corner is just within reach.

I was scoping Charles from Mirror Lake while he was drilling that ladder on ten. I was in the habit of riding him about the quality of the drilled anchors that he left behind. In this case, he was at it again with a line of bare studs and not a hanger in sight. Rather than place nice keyholes, he was leaving them out and using tieoffs which had me grumbling away down below.
At about the midpoint on the sideways ladder it dawned on him that the tieoffs likely wouldn't hold real loads in a fall and that he needed to improve the situation the old fashioned bonehead way. He took his hammer and began bending the projecting metal upwards! He knew that it was bad news and said he could hear me howling at him in his conscience. Little did he know that that the shrill voice was already fully activated far below as I watched and cursed his laziness.
We had a good laugh about it later.

I think the Queen had about 100 bolt, all 1/4" button heads. All but one or two were very well placed. Hangers were not employed anywhere except on one bolt at each belay station. The other belay bolt was a bare stud. Sean and I added a 5/16 button head with a stainless hanger to nearly every station.

Overall I was very impressed with how clean Charles left the route. We found the remains of two small heads that he apparently broke while trying to remove them, and one fixed pin which he must have simply overlooked when cleaning, it was easy to remove. Otherwise the route was pristine.

I would love to see more pictures Mark! As I said I'm stuck on my ass not moving around much. Probably the only reason I am back to posting! Sean has got be be a damn good expando climber! At least post some pics of his rad clothes.

About the Queen of Spades photos. . . for years Blanchard and I shared "BLINNY" (his nickname) because TheTaco couldn't handle having 2 avatars per email addy. . . then somebody hacked that account and some weird stuff happened. . . then I created eKat (dirtineye made that one up for me). . . and Blanchard and I changed webhosting for BlanchardGuitars.com and all kinds of photos (you used to have to host your own to post photos here) took the chop. . . so that's why the Queen photos are gone.

I'll see if he's into rescanning them. . .

?

Sorry dads.

It was a RAD route. . . he did a professional level slide show of it - complete with music - and people loved it. He used to show it a MMSA for me and my environmental ed/interp program on the INYO. It as a crack up, we'd hang his portaledge from the climbing wall at Main Lodge and do the show out there on the lawn. HUNDREDS of summer ski area visitors would come and watch it. . . pretty weird show for mainstream "Traditional Forest Visitors."

note--reREAD this, and thought i sounded goofy:
had just saw someone share about 'queen of spades' and was hoping to learn more, so i saw the link here...

yep, i sounded kind of goofy... very sorry, folks, :)
was just having fun learning more stuff here...

:)

edit:
oops was more than goofy... i had misread something on the other
thread... put the apology in though, as to the odd-confusion,
thankful that the
boo-boo as to my misread' was graciously-caught... oh my...